Ward Allan Yont
Biography

Ward Allan Yont is serving a life sentence for a murder he committed in 1993 while under the influence of methamphetamine and in the midst of a psychotic break suffered after his mother died in a freak accident.

Ward developed a passion for firearms during his adolescence and thought of himself as a heroic vigilante with a mission to “keep the world safe.” In fact, at the age of 16, he was lauded as a hero by the chief of police of Phoenix, AZ, for intervening in an attempted robbery of two elderly women. After time in the Marines and a successful though brief stint at the famed Comedy Store in Hollywood, CA, Ward became homeless and addicted to methamphetamine.

Shortly after being incarcerated in the state penitentiary in Florence, AZ, Ward discovered A Course in Miracles (ACIM), a book of teachings to assist its readers in achieving spiritual transformation. The underlying premise of the work is that the greatest miracle one may achieve in life is the act of gaining a full “awareness of love’s presence.” For the past 25 years, Ward has been an avid student and practitioner of ACIM and is a prison-based facilitator and teacher of topics related to spiritual psychotherapy and metaphysics.

Ward’s first book, …and Purpose in Life, is a memoir about the events that led to his incarceration and subsequent spiritual transformation, and will be published in the spring of 2019 by Arch Street Press.

“We can easily focus on the tragedies in Yont’s story, but there is no need to dwell there. For this is a story of resurrection and love—of darkness turned into light, and the transformation of the human heart. Yont is not a victim, but a teacher. He has lived his own story and now he illumines ours.”

—Marianne Williamson, educator, speaker and author of A Return to Love

Arch Street Press is part of the Institute for Leadership Education, Advancement and Development (I-LEAD), a Pennsylvania-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit with offices in Bryn Mawr and Reading. It has served as a key force for community leadership development since 1995, fostering a degreed citizenry to tangibly improve and sustain the economic, civic and social well-being of communities.